


Pretence

by Haldane



Series: The Pretence Series [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Consensual Kink, Dom/sub, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haldane/pseuds/Haldane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What slash writer could pass up:</p>
<p>"Now, Watson, I want you to do something for me."</p>
<p>"I am here to be used, Holmes."</p>
<p>(The Adventure of the Illustrious Client)</p>
<p>Holmes needs some help to put his mind at rest; Watson is more than willing to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretence

All the signs are there tonight. I watch my friend fidget aimlessly about the room, silently count up the weeks in my head, and make a bet with myself against the clock. While I wait to see if I am correct, I bury myself in the latest copy of the Lancet and do my best to ignore him completely.

"Watson."

"Hrmph?"

"I am damnably restless this evening."

It may not sound like an exchange of codes fraught with significance, but then no halfway respectable code does.

"Well, you could always go for a walk..." and when I pause the wind obligingly flings a rattle of sleet against the sitting-room windows, "but it does not seem like much of a night for it. Maybe you should just retire to your room early."

I could have suggested any one of a hundred things. But I know what he wants to hear, and I have no objections.

"I think I shall do exactly that. What about you?"

"Oh, I will be here a while yet. This article is deuced fascinating." He waits for a moment, as if to see if I have anything else to say, but when I remain riveted to the page he turns and leaves.

I check the clock. This allows me to both congratulate myself on winning my own bet and to time my own departure for at least ten minutes after his.

As I put down my journal and stand, I give myself a quick once-over. I am still dressed as when I came home from my rounds today, even to vest and jacket, and particularly pleased to see a long scratch mark on my left shoe. Just the sort of thing I need, it saves me the trouble of invention.

When I open the door of Holmes' bedroom, I see exactly what I am expecting to see. 

He kneels in the centre of the room, totally naked. Not back on his heels, but kneeling upright, with his hands linked behind his head. He stares straight ahead as I enter and close the door behind me. I love to look at him displayed like this, all lean lines and grace, and feel like I am a water buffalo posing next to a cheetah. I saw a hunting cheetah once in India, part of a rajah's retinue, and suddenly wonder what Holmes would look like in a collar. The image makes me dizzy and I take a couple of deep breaths before continuing.

I snap my fingers. "A chair. And your boot polish, my left shoe needs attention." 

He moves to get the things I've asked for, first the chair so I can sit and then he fetches a wooden box and kneels again at my feet. I deliberately make things difficult, shifting about and crossing my legs, and manage to mark his shoulder and hip with the black polish before he finishes. I wave him away with totally faked irritation. "That will do. And clean yourself up!"

He returns the box to its place in the wardrobe and rubs the marks off with a washcloth from his dresser. With no further orders, he takes his original position. I wait until the moment he settles, then get him up again. "Next time I want a better job done of it. Now get me the cane."

There's an umbrella stand near the door, which together with the usual umbrella or two and a walking stick holds a perfectly unremarkable schoolmaster's cane. The sort of thing a man might well have lying around, perhaps a schoolday memento or picked up at random and dropped in a convenient place to be forgotten. Or perhaps it's there to be used.

He presents the cane to me, holding it across both palms and bowing slightly, then once again kneels. It's hard to ignore his superior height, so I wait until he's back on the floor before I stand. I circle him a couple of times, looking at him as dispassionately as if he is a horse I am thinking of buying. I stop behind his shoulder and tap him with the cane. "A bad job of shoe cleaning. I think that calls for ten." 

"Ten?"

I jab him between the ribs then, hard. "Plus one for speaking out of turn! That makes eleven. Unless you want to try for twelve?"

Silence. In fact, I'm amazed he spoke at all, he does not usually make such mistakes. I will admit ten is higher than usual, but we have gone that far before. 

The next tap is under the elbow. "Up."

And then between the shoulders. "Over to the bed."

When he leans against the bed, the box and mattress support him from his knees to the top of his thighs. I use the cane to press between his shoulders until he is bent forward to about 45 degrees, hands still linked behind his head. It does not look very comfortable, but I know he is capable of holding it. The bed is directly opposite the fireplace, so when I stand to the side the light falls clearly on his back. This is essential, for although a beating may look rough and callous, I am as fanatically careful as the best of the surgeons I work with in my better-known practice.

The first stroke falls directly across the centre of his buttocks, then a pause, one above, a pause, one below, then suddenly five as fast as I can deliver them. I step back and examine my work. The welts flare red, but nowhere is the skin broken. Perfect. 

I drop the cane on the floor with a clatter, hoping to cause some uncertainly in him, since I know he counts the strokes even as I do. We both know I am not finished. 

Over near his discarded clothing I pick up his leather belt. I note with a small flash of humour that it's distinctly shorter than mine. There's a trick I saw an urchin do one day with a piece of broken harness, that I confess to trying out in private. I double the belt over, bring my hands together and jerk them apart, and a most satisfactory loud snap echoes in the room. 

I return to Holmes, and press him down further until he is lying flat on the bed, straightening his arms until they stretch above his head. I arrange his body as if he is inanimate, without asking permission or even issuing orders for him to carry out himself. When I am satisfied I step back and judge my distance.

One stroke, snap, across the existing welts. The pain must be intense, I see his hands clench in the coverlet. With the second stroke it's his teeth as well, biting a thick fold of cloth but he succeeds in remaining silent. One stroke left, but for now I keep it in reserve. Instead I lean forward, place my hand in comradely fashion on his right shoulder, while allowing the end of the belt to trail over his left, the side to which his head is turned. "You know, Holmes, if you had been better before, it would be over now. But as it is, there's still another one coming. Tsk, tsk, tsk." 

I trail my hand down from his shoulder along his side, enjoying the feel of muscles under warm skin, and a whim takes me. "Roll over."

He does as I say, and meets my eyes warily. It's a horrendously vulnerable position for any man to be in, his arms above his head and his legs dangling without leverage, and I still have the leather belt in my hand. I want both hands free, so I drape the belt over his stomach. There he is still aware of it as a threat, and it is important not to break the tension.

Every man has spots that are more sensitive and "private" than others - aside from the obvious! - and while I know of no other man's, I do know Holmes'. My hands go high on his ribcage, and I start tracing small circles over both nipples with my thumbs. They stiffen quickly with my touch and I laugh. His glare at me is somewhat ruined by a shudder as my trouser leg brushes the inside of his bare thighs. 

My left thumb continues circling, but I move my right hand aside and lean down, slowly, so he can see and anticipate, and close my lips over the small bump of flesh. I lick, and suck, and nibble, all gently, and when I break off and check his face his jaw is clenched tight and I am pleased. I trade sides and devote some time to the other nipple also, and his nipples are not the only part of him erect and hard when I finish. I pick up the belt. "Back on your stomach."

There's hardly an area left to aim at, his buttocks are striped and flaring red all over. I aim low and hit right across the last curve where they merge into the top of his thighs. I wait to see if he's going to break his silence, and when he holds still, I stroke his back with both hands and softly murmur congratulations.

But the session isn't over yet, even if the parts I find the most difficult are. While he rests for a moment on the bed, I step back and unfasten my trousers. 

I don't remove them, as a man would on going to bed, just release enough buttons as if for a public convenience. It is actually a bit awkward, since one does not normally enter a public convenience with such a case of tumescence, but I manage. The fire now throws my shadow over Holmes, but I know well enough where I am going. I spread him open with my hands and seek his entrance.

Holmes has the responsibility of preparing himself, and tonight he has again done the minimum necessary. I start with extreme slowness, and this very gentleness achieves what nearly a dozen blows did not and he moans aloud. I pull out instantly – much against my own inclination! – and slap him with my hand across all those welts. "No!"

I lean forward as menacingly as I can and hiss in directly into his ear. "Who is charge here?"

"You are."

"And how will we do things?"

"Your way."

"You're damned right it's my way! Now apologise."

"I'm sorry."

"Better than that!"

"I'm sorry, I am sorry. Please continue."

"And you'll be quiet?"

"Yes."

So I enter him again, slowly, until I am sunk deep into his tight heat. This part I admit to myself I truly enjoy, as the insults and blows I do not, and he allows it.

That is not an error in this account. He allows it, as he allows everything that happens here. It is his invitation that brings me to his room, and nothing holds him to my bidding except his own will. At any moment he can stand and leave, or simply refuse my commands, but his desires require this pretence from both of us. But when I take him my pleasure is unfeigned, and sometimes I think of it as his silent thanks to me.

But these are musings I have at other times, and at the moment I am hardly thinking at all, just moving long and luxuriously until the urgings of desire rise and my speed increases, hands gripping the front of his hips, moving ever faster and more roughly until I spend as deep inside him as I can reach. The rasp of my woollen trousers must feel like fire against the bruising, but he has never complained so I let it pass.

I lean on one arm across his back until my breathing slows and my body returns to normal. I move back, a little unsteadily, to the chair and snap my fingers again. The pitcher from the washstand has been sitting on the hearth, keeping warm, and next to it are a couple of men's handkerchiefs. Holmes rolls from the bed, crosses to the fire, and dampening one of the cloths comes to me and kneels to carefully clean my private parts, tucking them back into my clothes and fastening the buttons, before cleaning himself and tossing the cloth into the fire. When I give no further instructions, he kneels one last time of the carpet and links his hands behind his head.

I could do more, but I feel tonight that it has been enough for both of us. I do not keep him there long before I rise, place both hands on his shoulders, and kiss the back of his neck. Holmes sighs, lets his hands drop to his sides, and although he makes no other visible movement I have a sense of tension draining out of his body as cheap dye will drain out of cloth held under running water. 

I touch his right elbow and move his forearm suggestively towards his own neglected erection. He nods and takes it in his hand. He prefers to stroke himself, although he has admitted that he likes me close when he does. I kneel behind him, matching his position, and my hands draw slow curves on his belly and thighs. He comes almost as silently as if he is still under my orders, no more than a few small jerks, a sigh, and his head falls back to rest on my shoulder. Time stops, crystallised for one perfect second.

But never for long. I pass him the other cloth from the hearth, and he cleans himself and tosses it after the first. I help him stand, and steer him back towards the bed. As always, he is quiet and almost dazed. I once likened his great mind to a heavily loaded dray cart, which takes an extraordinary amount of effort to stop moving, but once still, an equally extraordinary effort to start moving again. If things go as I expect, he will rise several hours later than usual tomorrow morning.

I put him to bed, almost like a child, making sure the blankets are tucked around his shoulders. I check the window and bank the fire, then look around for what I can only think of as "the evidence". The jug goes back on the washstand, the cane back with the umbrellas, the belt lies innocuous with his trousers. With everything as it should be, I exit the room and close the door quietly behind.

I return to the sitting room, shaking my neck and shoulders to loosen the tension. It's difficult, sometimes, to pre-judge every word and motion – it took me ages to control the instinct to apologise – but tonight things went well and I heave a gusty sigh of contentment. It's still a little early for bed, and it is a vile night for walking, so perhaps a glass of port and a return to the Lancet. That article really was most fascinating.


End file.
